Studies at Top Academic Hospitals Identify UpToDate as Resource of Choice; UpToDate Customer Base Grew 50% in 2003.

Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers

WELLESLEY, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 4, 2004

Surveys conducted by three leading academic centers in 2003 indicated that UpToDate(R) is the clinicians' clinical information resource of choice and is changing the way patients are managed. UpToDate also reported a 50% increase in the company's subscriber base during the last twelve months.

Research Shows UpToDate is a Primary Resource

A number of leading medical institutions conducted independent research on the subject of electronic resources in 2003:

-- 75% of University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine

survey respondents with patient care responsibilities used

UpToDate to confirm a patient management decision and 60% said

that it changed the way they managed a particular patient.(1)

-- More than 85% of University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A.

Carver College of Medicine respondents identified electronic

sources as their primary resource when compared to paper

resources. 53% of these respondents identified UpToDate as

their primary resource.(2)

-- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center respondents were asked to

give the first resource they would use to answer a

disease-related question. UpToDate was cited more frequently

than all other resources combined.(3)

50% Increase in Hospital and Individual Subscriber Base

-- In 2003, more than 200 hospitals, including New

York-Presbyterian and Duke University Medical Center, became

new UpToDate subscribers.

-- UpToDate enjoyed substantial growth in Australia and

Europe--adding Canberra Hospital and amongst others

Universitaetsklinik Charite Berlin, Universitaetsklinikum

Hamburg-Eppendorf and Kliniken der LMU Munich in Germany.

-- Long-time subscribers like the University of Washington saw

UpToDate usage double on-site for a second consecutive year,

illustrating a continuous resource adoption cycle.

-- Physicians in 110 countries now use UpToDate.

Topics That Mattered

UpToDate topic reviews were accessed more than 25 million times by users around the world in 2003, and were emailed to colleagues an additional 200,000 times. The top 25 topics read by medical staff in 2003 reflected global medical concerns such as acute pulmonary embolism, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, and anemia; while peaks in usage for topic reviews on influenza, West Nile Virus, aseptic meningitis and human poxviruses mirrored timely health issues.

"Customers tell us repeatedly that our unique ability to provide easy access to continuously updated, expert answers make UpToDate their resource of choice," said Dr. Burton D. Rose, founder and editor-in-chief of UpToDate and clinical professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School. "Our goal for 2004 is to continue to grow not only our community of users but also our content offerings in pediatrics, allergy and immunology and neurology."

About UpToDate

UpToDate is a subscription-based clinical information resource created by a community of 3,000 expert clinicians to provide physicians with answers to clinical questions that arise at the point of care. UpToDate synthesizes published evidence and clinical experience to provide recommendations for patient care in fast and easy-to-use CD-ROM, online and Pocket PC formats. The company accepts no advertising or sponsorships, a policy that helps to ensure that UpToDate's content remains unbiased by any commercial interests. UpToDate is an official educational program of, recommended by, or produced in cooperation with eight leading medical societies in the United States. UpToDate is used by tens of thousands of clinicians and by hundreds of premier medical institutions worldwide including Massachusetts General Hospital, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Academic Medical Centre Amsterdam in the Netherlands and St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo. For more information or to subscribe to UpToDate, go to www.uptodate.com, email [e-mail], or call toll free, 800-998-6374 in US and Canada, or 781-237-4788 elsewhere.

(1) R.Y. Meadows, R.H. Hodge, E.D. Johnson. Journal of General

Internal Medicine 2003; Volume 18; Issue s1; Page 135.

Implementation Methodology and Usage Patterns of an Electronic

Medical Reference Resource in an Academic Medical Center.

(2) Michael W. Peterson, Jane Rowat, Clarence Kreiter, and Jess

Mandell. Acad Med 2004; 79: 89-95. Medical Students' Use of

Information Resources.

(3) Huang, G; Sands, D; Loo, T. Housestaff Use of Medical

References in Ambulatory Care. Proceedings of the American

Medical Informatics Association Conference; 2003 November

8-12; Washington, DC.